First of all, they’ll tell you, it’s really none of their business. Even though, in fact, Major League Baseball also is their business.

Part of doing business in baseball, however, is staying out of the other guys’ business.

So you won’t find anyone in the Padres clubhouse (or likely any of 28 other locker rooms) who’ll take the Washington Nationals to task for their adamance in not pitching their best pitcher down the stretch, to say nothing of a postseason they’ll probably enter with the majors’ best record.

That said, you also won’t find a ballplayer alive who wouldn’t understand if Stephen Strasburg’s head simply exploded all over Nats General Manager Mike Rizzo. After setting Wednesday’s game at New York as Strasburg’s final start, the Nationals decided to shut him down immediately after a desultory outing Friday night.

“I think every single guy who plays would be fighting it,” said Padres third baseman Chase Headley. “You play this game to get a chance at a World Series. It doesn’t happen every year. That’d be about the toughest pill you could swallow.”

Doesn’t happen every year? In Our Nation’s Capitol, make that almost never. It hasn’t happened since 1933, FDR’s first year in the White House, basically a Strasburg long-toss away from Nationals Park.

Strasburg, though careful not to say anything that would alter the winning vibe around the surprising Nats this season, has been quietly fighting the discontinuation of his season due to pitch limits that were set after his return from Tommy John surgery in 2010.

He’s made it clear that he disagrees with Rizzo’s decision — no matter how well-informed and well-intentioned — and really let it show with his demeanor and pitching Friday night at Pittsburgh. Manager Davey Johnson said Strasburg was worn down from “thinking about the decision,” but also the sense that he’s letting down his teammates with his absence, albeit forced.

Instead of getting credit for putting together a team that’s gone from under .500 a year ago to a plausible 100-win season — largely on the strength of the NL’s best pitching staff, the star of which is Strasburg, the pride of Santee and SDSU — Rizzo’s been taking steady fire from all sides for trying to protect the pitcher both as a 24-year-old performer and investment.

No less an authority on Tommy John surgery than former pitcher Tommy John has joined the long list of people who think the Nats are babying Strasburg. The general consensus is that the Nats waited months too long to begin curtailing Strasburg’s workload, including maybe a wink-wink trip to the disabled list, preserving his arm for September and beyond.

To be sure, if the Nats turn stone cold over the season’s final three weeks or get swept out of the first round of the divisional playoffs, Rizzo might become the most despised man in D.C. since ... well, you pick your politician.

“Such a tough situation,” said Padres General Manager Josh Byrnes. “The GM has to balance short-term/long-term. This is a big one. This is the first pick of the (2009) draft. I’m sure they’ve consulted with a lot of people, the best people, compared notes internally on the best course of action. It’s so hard to know. I’m certain they’ve considered it carefully. I’m sure they’ll do what they feel is best.